An extraordinary asshole.
(This is a rant for people who read DailyKos. Otherwise, skip it.)
The annoying thing about blogs is that they segment the audience by ideology, and give righteous but out of touch guys like Armando a bully pulpit. Basically, during the Roberts nomination, DailyKos has become a massive forum for righteous but meaningless posturing. "Explain your views on Roe or we filibuster." "Disclose the memos Roberts wrote in the Solicitor General's office or we have to filibuster." "Explain your views on stare decisis or filibuster." These are all common refrains on the frontpage and inside the comments.
These refrains are flawed twofold. First, they are hypocritical. The right-wing spinpoint is called the Ginsburg precedent, and there's no intellectually honest way to refute this. Some idiots say that "we heard Ginsburg's opinion on Roe." This is woefully inadequate, since Ginsburg only gave talked about abortion as related to a speech she had given on the topic. Roberts, squeaky-clean as he is, has no flags to grab him on. Furthermore, Ginsburg refused to answer questions on dozens of other important legal questions including: establishment vs. free exercise in the first amendment, anti-trust law, the Constitution as related to Native Americans and numerous others. However, this demonstration of idiocy is meaningless because Kossacks and those like them don't get to decide.
As Armando says, the SCOTUS is Extraordinary. This language is lifted from the filibuster compromise made by the Gang of 14 moderates. As Armando would have it, failure to give a straightforward answer on Roe is extraordinary; ergo it is grounds for a filibuster. This is not only frustrating in its confrontational petulance, it also demonstrates an inability to get beyond his own sphere of power and determine who actually gets to decide the cloture vote. You have to get 14 people on board:
That's it. Did I miss Sen. Armando (D-Mars)? KOSSACKS: YOU HAVE NO SAY IN WHETHER OR NOT TO FILIBUSTER! Stop blustering and blowing and hemming and hawing. Do you think that these guys believe a non-answer in the Ginsburg mold is Extraordinary? Well, I'm a flaming lefty and I think the leftist arguments are absolutely dishonest. Where does that mean Landrieu or Nelson stand? Or for that matter DeWine and McCain? I'm pretty sure the Repubs would nuke it in a second. Then we dare say that Dems don't have a spine anymore. Stop acting like you're in the majority. We can't pick and choose who we have; we need more seats not less.
Stop telling the so called DINOs to leave. You want only "tough" Senators who stand for real lefty values? I'd like to see Ted Kennedy win Landrieu's seat, Barbara Boxer win Mark Pryor's seat, Nancy Pelosi win Salazar's seat, Howard Dean win Ben Nelson's seat, Pat Leahy win Max Baucus's and Chuck Schumer win Byron Dorgan's. Yep, without those DINOs that save our asses in the red states, the Republicans would have a filibuster proof majority. Then you could quit your blustering about when we should or shouldn't filibuster. They're saving the filibuster for us, we can't just tell them when we want to filibuster. They're representing their constituents, many of whom are very in favor of the other party.
And on a further DINO note, you're not a DINO if abortion isn't your number one issue. People on Kos keep coming up with this ridiculous shit about how the Dems have to put their foot down, because abortion is basically the only issue that matters. That's bullshit. We stand for a lot of things. One of the biggest Dem problems is its inability to formulate a palatable stance on abortion because NARAL et. al. insist that the Democrats absolutely legalize it, with not restrictions and piss and moan if a Democrat so much as finds abortion morally objectionable (see Clinton, H.R.). If the Democrats continue to offer this extreme position and leave the mushy middle with nothing to cling to, Republicans will keep winning elections and appointing judges. And before anyone tells me that electing a mushy dem is just as bad as electing a repug, remind me again which party has overturning Roe as A GOAL IN ITS NATIONAL PLATFORM. Hmm, well that sure leaves me conflicted on which party is going to do more to preserve legalized abortion.
That felt good.
Anybody who read this and reads Kos, please comment, because it has no cross posting value. It'll just get flamed to shits on any lefty site.
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